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RickB- Human, Artist, Fool.

Ynys Mon, UK.

The blog is called ten percent because of what Kurt Vonnegut wrote when remembering Susan Sontag - She was asked what she had learned from the Holocaust, and she said that 10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and that 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and that the remaining 80 percent could be moved in either direction.-

And I'm writing it because I need the therapy and I lust for world domination.

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Dr Mengele Award Goes To James Mitchell & Bruce Jessen

17 July, 2007 — RickB

They released this statement-

“We are proud of the work we have done for our country. The advice we have provided, and the actions we have taken have been legal and ethical. We resolutely oppose torture. Under no circumstances have we ever endorsed, nor would we endorse, the use of interrogation methods designed to do physical or psychological harm. We were not in any way involved with the scandal at Abu Ghraib or with the abuses alleged at Guantanamo. We were appalled by reports from both places.”

So they are liars, delusional and scared of war crimes prosecutions, oh yeah and part of the faith based approach,

Mitchell and Jessen’s methods were so controversial that, among colleagues, the reaction to their names alone became a litmus test of one’s attitude toward coercion and human rights. Their critics called them the “Mormon mafia” (a reference to their shared religion)

Who would Jesus torture?

Mitchell and Jessen, who were placed in charge of interrogations on the C.I.A.’s network of “black sites,” had no real-world experience in questioning prisoners. Their expertise was in training U.S. soldiers to endure Communist-style torture techniques—the same tactics they are accused of reverse-engineering for use on detainees.

as Zubaydah clammed up, Mitchell seemed to conclude that he would talk only when he had been reduced to complete helplessness and dependence, so the C.I.A. team began building a coffin in which they planned to bury the detainee alive. Eban concludes that they probably did not put Zubaydah in the coffin, but soon after (as was reported last year) they employed more “SERE school” techniques, which included stripping Zubaydah naked and making his room so cold that his body turned blue.

the document is divided into four categories: “Degradation,” “Physical Debilitation,” Isolation and Monopoliztion [sic] of Perception,” and “Demonstrated Omnipotence.” The tactics include “slaps,” “forceful removal of detainees’ clothing,” “stress positions,” “hooding,” “manhandling,” and “walling,” which entails grabbing the detainee by his shirt and hoisting him against a specially constructed wall.

And as ever evil pays, hooray for capitalism!

Despite their questionable credentials, Eban reports that the principals at Mitchell, Jessen & Associates are raking in money. According to people familiar with their compensation, they get paid more than $1,000 per day plus expenses, tax-free, for their overseas work

All part of the rigged procedure that the American Psychological Association happily went along with:-

But last fall, a psychologist named Jean Maria Arrigo came to see me with a disturbing claim about the American Psychological Association, her profession’s 148,000-member trade group. Arrigo had sat on a specially convened A.P.A. task force that, in July 2005, had ruled that psychologists could assist in military interrogations, despite angry objections from many in the profession. The task force also determined that, in cases where international human-rights law conflicts with U.S. law, psychologists could defer to the much looser U.S. standards—what Arrigo called the “Rumsfeld definition” of humane treatment.

Arrigo and several others with her, including a representative from Physicians for Human Rights, had come to believe that the task force had been rigged—stacked with military members (6 of the 10 had ties to the armed services), monitored by observers with undisclosed conflicts of interest, and programmed to reach preordained conclusions.

The full Vanity Fair article is here. And James & Bruce? FYI They executed the Nazis who did the same things. Maybe your God will forgive you, I ain’t feeling so christian right now motherfuckers.

James Mitchell’s new life begins with the same ritual every morning: He goes jogging, wearing Adidas shorts and a black tank top, his iPod in his ear. Then he gets into his luxury SUV and drives back to luxury home on Lake Vienna Drive in Pasco County, Florida.

The hacienda-style house, with a natural stone façade, columned walkways and palm trees in front of the door is brand-new. Mitchell has just had it built, in the midst of an upscale, gated community.

The freestanding garage to the right of the house is big enough for three or four cars, and a mountain bike is mounted to the back of the SUV. Mitchell, a tanned man in his late 50s with silver-gray hair, a neatly trimmed beard and trendy sunglasses, spends two hours a day exercising. In fact, exercise plays an important role in his new life under Florida’s blue skies.

This is really shocking stuff. However, the thing I really cannot get my head round is how they can maintain they were not involved in torture. It is almost as if they simply do not know what the word means.

Or perhaps they have fallen into the “definitional” delusion which seems to be so common with Britain and the US: the US does not torture (by definition) so what I did could not have been torture even though it fulfills all the criteria of torture.

More like “situational” morality. As “in this situation” (meaning when we do it) its neither wrong or torture (and it can’t be torture if its not wrong). If somebody else does it…well thats really, really bad, and therefore wrong (somewhere else).

[…] ultimately illegal torture techniques is the creation of torture designers and consultants such as Mitchell, Jessen and others in the Spokane area. These two psychologists and others, including former U.S. […]

In this kind of clandestine war, there is no other way to
fight the enemy and get information from him.
all democracies have used torture when they thought it was necessary : results could only be obtained by those methods. You think talking nice to these scumbags is going to help us get rid of them ? Sure it’s going to be a long fight,
but we will prevail in the end no matter how much queasyness the naive display.

Torture does not get good information.
Previous use is not an argument of justification, and in recent history the US & UK have not used torture openly as is done now.
There is plenty of evidence on the web that proves the ineffectualness of torture and also its base immorality, if you choose to not be aware of that evidence your naivety is not just profound but perhaps pathological. To support it is plainly wrong and makes you a comrade of the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge, Stalin et al.
There is not a ‘long fight’ what is happening is an empire is meeting resistance, 911 was the largest instance of that. If America stops its imperial activities it would not be hated.

Mitchell and Jessen advised initially on techniques used to train our soldiers to resist torture. Later, on, though, they went over to the dark side. Jane Mayer’s book on all of this just came out as well.

Hey Don, yep her book looks very good, many of the principals reverse engineered SERE techniques to establish the torture program. Mitchell & Jensen are perhaps the ones to make the most money out of doing that. Clearly despite (some might say because of their conservative) religious backgrounds they have no moral or ethical sense and should face war crimes charges, if there is no chance of that other sanctions against them and other war criminals should be pursued.

Matt, there is evidence, harm was done, what Bush did didn’t work and furthermore supporting torture is morally equivalent to supporting violent paedophilia (which was used in Abu Ghraib incidentally). So I’d get some help if I were you.

I have never seen such a concentrated line of stupid in all of the net. “What really upthets you is that what Bush did, worked.”

You are without a doubt a candidate for the most retarded being in the universe.

Nothing bush did worked, except his policy of treason, betrayal, murder, and deception. Those of his retarded stupid followers still mentally crippled enough to own up having voted for the traitor should be deported.